Cupcakes?
by October's Child
Summary: 'Coz all criminals secretly enjoy baking... right?


_Warning: this may be the most pointless thing you ever read. But I was writing another Itachi drabble, very angsty, lots of blood, tears, etc, when my mother kidnapped me to help her make cakes. So... baking fairy cakes+ thinking about Itachi= highly OOC daftness. Heh..._

_I do not own Naruto... I just borrow characters now and then :) and give them back, in perfect condition, obviously... _

o-o

He'd heard that baking was supposed to be therapeutic. And Heaven knows, he needed some form of therapy, which is why Itachi was stood in the dark kitchen of the Akatsuki hideout, cracking eggs and meticulously measuring flour into a large bowl, wondering when the fun kicked in. He couldn't find a wooden spoon anywhere, so he'd swiped a puppet arm from Sasori's room. With the fingers removed, it worked rather well as a large-ish spoon. He'd had to put his glasses on to read the recipe, which annoyed him a bit, because he was trying very hard to keep his failing eyesight a secret.

It didn't help when the flour poofed in his face, coating the lenses with a thick layer of white powder.

Wiping the glasses on his sleeve, he peered at the recipe book. _Measure the ingredients, _done. _Beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. _Right… Itachi had no idea what that meant, so he thwacked the lump of butter a few times with the wooden arm. It flattened satisfyingly, but showed no signs of lightness or combining with the sugar.

Frowning slightly, he flipped to the back of the book to check the glossary. Apparently, 'beating' meant mixing vigorously. This made a lot more sense than hitting the stuff, so Itachi set about stirring with gusto, until he achieved a gritty yellow paste. It didn't evince much light or fluffy quality, but it seemed more cake-ish than before, at least. _Fold in eggs and sifted flour and stir until combined. _

Right. How does one fold a liquid substance around another semi-liquid substance, anyway? He settled for just stirring normally, which seemed to work. It was actually quite soothing, he reasoned as he twirled the spatula-arm through the goop, watching the flour disappear to meld in with the pleasing doughiness.

A long-forgotten scene flashed through his mind, of his mother making a birthday cake for Sasuke when he was three. He remembered trying to snaffle the raw mixture and Mikoto chasing him out the kitchen, before giving him the bowl to lick out when she was done.

Itachi smiled at the memory. If he recalled correctly, raw cake mixture was almost as good as the finished product... He stuck a finger in the bowl and licked it clean.

'_Ohh…mm.' _It took willpower not to simply sail in and scoff the lot, but thankfully, Itachi had more than enough willpower to refrain. He did, however, snarf another fingerful from the bowl. _Divide between cases and bake for 15 minutes in a pre-heated oven_. Oh, so the oven was supposed to be preheated… that couldn't have been mentioned at the _start_ of the recipe? Fine… he twiddled the dials on the oven until it hummed to life, and unwrapped the little packet of cupcake cases that he'd bought with the recipe book. He sat the flimsy papers in neat rows on a baking tray and dropped a blob of mixture into the first. It splatted in most satisfactorily, so he repeated the action for the rest of the cases, pausing now and then to lick the spoon, or his finger.

He was halfway through the latter action when Kisame walked in. The fish-man stopped dead at the sight of Itachi, holding a puppet arm covered in cake mixture, with a finger in his mouth, covered in flour. His glasses lay unnoticed on the worktop, but they had left two flour-free circles in Itachi's otherwise geisha-white face. Kisame burst out laughing.

"You look like a freaking panda! Um… what the heck are you doing?"

"Making cupcakes." Itachi's voice was dispassionate, as if confectionary manufacture was an every-day activity for S-rank criminals. Kisame goggled a bit.

"Um… ok… but" his cheek twitched in amusement.

"If you laugh again, I will put you in a Tsukoyomi desert in the midday sun for 3 days." The shark turned a paler shade of blue and backpedalled.

"Heh... well, they look delicious! I'll have to eat one when they're ready, and…"

"Shoo."

Kisame shooed with admirable promptitude. Itachi resisted the urge to facepalm and put his cakes in the now-hot oven. Soon, the divine scent of baking filled the kitchen and wafted throughout the hideout. Konan, investigating, declared that no cupcake was complete without icing, and left an industrious Uchiha whipping up butter frosting. He discovered food colouring in a cupboard and added a splash of red, thinking that it would be rather cool to doodle sharingan designs on the cakes.

Unfortunately, the icing did not cooperate and turned a virulent pink.

Itachi blinked at it a few times, then shrugged. Red, pink, whatever. It would taste the same. Although… this was eye-burning Barbie pink. Hm… maybe if he added some yellow, the icing would go orange, which would be slightly more decent.

The oven started beeping shrilly and Itachi whipped open the door. As far as he could tell, the cakes were ready… He retrieved them, burning his hand in the process. After he finished hopping around swearing, he gingerly removed them from the tray and arranged them on a wire rack thing to cool, as dictated by the recipe book.

Deidara stuck his head round the door.

"I had to see this for myself, un! Cakes, Itachi? Can I have one, un?"

He snuck closer and Itachi caught his hand hovering over the icing. A tongue flickered out and tried to lick up some pink sugary goodness, and Deidara very quickly found himself legging it through the door, protecting his poor abused hand-mouth from Itachi's Katon jutsu.

Deciding he couldn't be bothered changing the colour, Itachi spooned icing onto a cake and smeared it round into a pleasing swirl. It was far more satisfying than it should have been, really. He found himself smiling as he blobbed and swirled icing around. It really was relaxing…

o-o-o-o

Hidan was curious. There was an odd smell wafting around the base, and it had distracted him from his daily prostrations to Jashin… he would make it up with a sacrifice later, when he had tracked down the source of the scent. He followed his nose to the kitchen, and found it full of his fellow Akatsuki members scoffing pink cupcakes. He was about to 'wtf' when Deidara spotted him and shoved one of the confections into his hand.

"Itachi made them, un! They're really good!" The blonde had icing on his nose and both hands were licking at their respective fingertips. Itachi himself was nowhere to be seen, so Hidan joined the party and munched happily into the soft sponge.

Everyone was being surprisingly convivial until Sasori came storming in, wooden face livid.

"WHERE THE HELL IS MY ARM?"

-end-

_ohh... you can tell I need caffeine... heh. Oh wells.. review and you can have one of Itachi's cakes! xx_


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